GOP Scares Germans

America holds its breath today for a puff of smoke from the domicile of Would-Be Misogynist in Chief, Herman Cain. The Godfather of the pizza world may awaken with divorce papers attached to a bloody used pizza box, or he may be able to script another one of those heart-warming TV interviews where the submissive bride holds hands and a new Tiffany treasure on her finger as she mumbles support for the political master of the house.

The world is starting to notice the comedic theme to this race. Even the German news weeklyDer Spiegel, feels embarrassed for the US. When we Germans get embarrassed about another country’s political fortunes, it’s really kind of sad. That’s the way it is in the run up to the 2012 GOP primary season that begins in just a month. Soon, the cornfields of Iowa will be filled with a James Earl Jones-like voce calling Republicans to caucus. “Hear not, for whom the bell tolls this time…If you lie and cheat before them, they will come,” They will come from their tractors, they will come from their fields, they will turn off FOX News for a few minutes to gather around the warm fire of retail politics and cast a stone in the muddy pond. “Welcome to American Evil — GOP Edition. (Uproarious Applause) It’s springtime for Obama and Democrats, winter for the Tea Party and GOP…”

If Iowans look closely into the mud pond, they will be able to review all the faces of castaways in the “anyone but Romney” race. There goes the face of the Ames straw poll winner, a victim of her “Jehovah God,” and revisionist history. The Texan Trojan horse sent in to replace her, made the would-be Times Square bomber look like a brilliant military figure. As much as the Godfather of Pizza touched some in the GOP, it all came down to whom he touched. His explanations were never as simple as “9-9-9.” The Newt, despite turning into a serial zombie – eating the brains of political soothsayers – ultimately will discover his excess baggage fees would bankrupt the wealthiest of the one percent. Meanwhile, the good doctor of taking Libertarian liberties seemed unable to understand that in the party of the one percent, military contractors are the 100 percent – the good doctor might as well be speaking Chinese like that former ambassador who had the nerve to represent a black guy abroad. For some reason, the face of Rick Santorum was never seen in the muddy pond – which was reflective in itself.

This GOP run for the nomination could not have been scripted any better if it were done on purpose. Kind of like my favorite movie of all time — the original 1968 Mel Brooks production of The Producers. In that movie, Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel played a pair of Broadway producers who wanted to assure themselves a totally failed productions so that they could reap the benefits of selling thousands of percents of the show to some easily swindled little old ladies. The producers carefully scripted, cast, and staged the play against every thread of known wisdom in the industry. Naturally, being a brilliant Mel Brooks production, the common wisdom was defiled and ultimately the producers went to prison.

A long time has passed since that original movie, the very successful Broadway production, and a terrible movie remake. Perhaps someone on the Obama re-election team saw something inspiring in The Producers? Perhaps the real Republicans of a couple of generations ago, most of whom died with Barry Goldwater, William Buckley, and the Chicago Cubs hope for a World Series entry, imagined a clearer path to taking back their party in 2016. By then, a Bush by any other name could be valued once again in a dysfunctional America. Perhaps Barack Obama will become the Kenyan Socialist radical who pals around with terrorist during his second term. Whatever the motivation, the FOX News audience was ripe for a swindle.

All it would take would be to cast players convincing enough to make Marcus Bachmann conclude he is a heterosexual. This latest incarnation of the Producers is set to a hypnotic iambic pentameter that will guarantee the expected outcome in November 2012. If this is the work of the President’s dirty tricks team, it will be seen as Barack Obama’s most successful strategic planning since Osama bin Laden was dispatched under the sea.

Then again, it might also go the way of the original movie and FOX News viewers will applaud not only the brilliant acting, but vote in one of the actors as President of the United States.